


No Trace

by indiefic



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Peggy has a kid, Peggy's married to Jack, Peggy's sleeping with Steve, Steggy baby, it's not her husband's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:04:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6406174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiefic/pseuds/indiefic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a vignette.  Originally, it was the core of what turned into my story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5976502/chapters/13734460">Time Heals All Wounds</a>, but in the writing of that story, it became clear that this dynamic wouldn't work.  I decided to go ahead and post it as a stand alone.</p><p>Peggy Carter has just had a child and she's trying to find her way through life with her husband, Jack Thompson.  But Steve Rogers still being alive really complicates things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Trace

Peggy sits in the chair, staring blindly across the small living room at the clock on the mantel.  Everything feels askew, off.  Her body feels heavy, alien, like it doesn’t belong to her.  She’s been home since last night, after five days in the hospital.  The first two days she doesn’t remember.  Not at all.  There’s like a missing piece in her consciousness.  She woke, groggy and disoriented, to the nurse placing the baby in her arms.  He’s hers.  She’s sure of that.  But she has no memory of his birth.  The doctors took her apart and stitched her back together - literally - and she remembers none of it.

Jack seems unconcerned.  Not that she would expect anything different from him.  This is the way.  The modern way.  But part of Peggy wonders if she wouldn’t have been better off in a tent on some wartorn battlefield, biting down on a leather strap, with her child’s father at her side.

The sterility, the antiseptic nature of her boy’s birth has left her cold.  She looks up as Jack walks back in the room, holding the baby.  

“He, uh, needs a change,” Jack says, frowning.

Peggy looks up at her husband, understanding that he expects her to change the baby’s diaper.  Gingerly, she pushes herself out of the chair.  The stitches pinch and pull.  Her breasts ache as she cradles the tiny bundle to her chest, slowly making her way to the nursery as Jack heads for the sideboard, to make himself a drink before the guys pick him up for his weekly poker game.

The diaper change goes better than the last one.  Her technique is improving.  But her son still doesn’t seem very appreciative of her efforts.  Her breasts are leaking at the sound of his cries and his closeness.  She looks down at herself.  Her nightgown is completely sodden and her dressing gown will be soon as well.

Sighing, Peggy foregoes the rocking chair in the nursery, a beautiful piece that belonged to Jack’s grandmother.  Sitting is incredibly painful and the rocking chair, while lovely, isn’t comfortable in the best of situations.

Peggy walks to the bedroom, hoping Jack will have the presence of mind to keep his mouth shut.  She already knows his opinion on babies in their marriage bed and she has no desire to hear them again, especially now.

Pushing the covers out of the way, Peggy lays her boy on the bed and then shrugs out of her dressing gown before joining him.  She’s on her side, facing him as she unbuttons the front of her nightgown.  She pulls him close, but he cries and squirms, putting his hands in front of his face, making it impossible.  With more patience than she thought she could muster, she finally gets him to latch on.

It hasn’t even been a minute before Jack walks into the darkened bedroom.  “Uh,” he says, clearly uncomfortable with the scene, “the guys are here.  I’m gonna head out.”

“Yes, dear,” Peggy replies.

He stands there for a minute and she thinks maybe he’s going to kiss her cheek, but then he turns and leaves.

* * *

 

Peggy wakes with a start as the mattress shifts under his weight.  She blinks across at him, but his attention is riveted on the baby, now sleeping peacefully, still at her breast.  Slowly, he reaches out and runs a knuckle across the little cheek.

She reaches out, careful not to disturb the baby and grasps his hand.  His eyes immediately dart to hers and he smiles softly.  “How are you?” he asks carefully, letting her know that she does, indeed, look as bad as she feels.

“I’ll manage,” she replies.

He levers himself up on his elbow and leans across, kissing her gently.  She sighs into it, feeling tears prick at her eyes.

Slowly, Steve pulls back and smiles down at the baby.  “Look what you made,” he says, grinning.

She smiles then too.  Because she can’t remember the last time she saw him look so legitimately happy.  Proud too.  Though she’s the one who did all the work.  She supposes it still looks better on Steve than it does on Jack, given that Steve is her boy’s father.

Carefully, she presses at the corner of the baby’s mouth and he pops off her breast with a little gurgle.  She rights her nightgown and settles back against the pillow with a sigh.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he says, his expression somber.

Reaching out, she cups his cheek in her hand.  “I know,” she says.  And she does.  She knows if he had a choice, he would have been there.  But they’ve already pushed this too far.  She still doesn’t know how he’s here, or where he came from.  She doesn’t know if he knows.  But if he does, he isn’t telling her.  All he’ll say - all he’s ever said - is that he’s here on the condition that he changes nothing.  

She wonders how awful it was where he came from, that he was willing to make a deal with the devil like that - to be condemned to watch the people he loves without interfering.

Of course, neither of them were any good at following that edict.  Peggy was already involved with Jack when she’d realized there was someone following her, helping her.  It took her months to track him down, confront him.  And she had been more shocked than she had ever been in her life to discover that her anonymous savior was none other than Steve Rogers.

But not the Steve Rogers she knew.

He was older.  Not old.  But older, a good five, maybe ten years older than she was.  And so very worn, frayed and broken in ways she could never imagine Steve being.  He told her then.  Told her that he was forbidden to interfere, that no one could know he was there, it was a condition of his return.

And she respected that, for a while.

But after too many lonely nights, too many disappointments from Jack, she found Steve.  And they both threw caution to the wind.

And now, here they are.  Peggy is with Jack, stuck in a stifling marriage that seems completely typical.  She and Jack, ostensibly, have a son, James.  But James isn’t Jack’s son.  He’s Steve’s son.  

“Do you regret this?” she asks quietly.

Steve looks at her, frowning.

“We’ve changed things, my darling,” she says gently.  She looks down at her son.  “Changed them so very much.”

He takes a breath and then shrugs.  “I don’t regret a thing,” he says firmly.  He shakes his head.  “But no one - “

“No one can know,” she says, finishing the thought.  She sighs.  “I know.”

“I’m sorry, Peggy,” he says.  “This isn’t fair.  Not fair to either of you.”

She laughs mirthlessly.  “Life isn’t fair, Steve,” she says blandly.  “I still wouldn’t change any of this.”

He watches her before leaning in and kissing her again.  “I love you,” he says quietly.

“I love you too, my darling,” she says.  “Always.  Even if no one can ever know.”

END 


End file.
